Did anyone read the latest review of the "Norwegian Dream" on Cruise Reviews . com. The author was boarding the Dream in Europe and was handed a paper elling him that the last cruise had many people (at least 15%) get sick on board the previous cruise. People were warned and told that if they choose not to board, they would lose %100 o the cruise fare.

What are your comments??? Would cruise insurance cover such a problem if your health concerns meant that you would decide not to board the ship???

I, for one, find this quite upsetting. Holland America was criticized for cancelling similar cruises last summer in Alaska. In hind-sight, I think H.A.L. did the right thing.

We were on the Sea Princess in Alaska in June and the Ocean Princess had a bunch of people getting sick. Once we boarded the Sea Princess we were given a not from the doctor telling us to wash our hands frequently and try not to use public restrooms.
I also brought my own lysol from home and would spray down my cabin daily. Also, I brought some anti bacterial hand gel ( the kind that doesn't need water) and I used that always before I ate. The crew also used more powerful cleaners around the ship. My family all stayed healthy. Good luck!

Thats old news. The Dream has been doing Canada/New England for a cple cruises and she leaves 11/9 on a 9 day carribean. We are on her 11/17 and inspite of hubbys surgery 11/1/ we still plan on going and our HMO doesn't cover outside the US.

Old news, not to mention the statement or letter being handed out stating x number got sick and if you choose not to cruise you would not get a refund? Who wrote the letter, was it legit (I don't mean about passengers getting sick) and where did this info come from? Sounds a bit suspect to me. As for travelers insur covering this type of thing, my gut feeling is no!! If the ship was advising you to board with care that might be a little different. My info has been, since this happened the ship has gone overboard keeping everything in spotless condition. Just my opinion.....Nita

I worry about people that may have leukemia or other diseases that limit their immune response. I don't think the cruise should be a total loss for them should they choose to not board. I would at least think NCL should offer them a future cruise, especially since they had the expense flying to Europe.

Chuck, I understand your concerns and you are to be commended for thinking of others, but do we really don't know that if someone had a health problem like you are referring to something could not be worked out? We also need to be concerned about where and who was passing out the letter. I really don't think NCL would hand out a letter stating "people are getting sick on our ships, but you are screwed cause we have your money" Ha Ha? A little bit of knowledge can be a very dangeous thing as we all know. None of us know the real facts about the sickness and it's in the past now anyway.

Chuck Palm. My wife and I were on that cruise, and in fact it is all-true. I have attached a copy of the letter that was handed to us in Dover as we were getting on the ship. There is much more to this story. People were really getting sick my wife was so sick, our friends Peter and Marion were sick and their cabin was on the 6th deck across form the Medical center. There was always a long line of both crew and passengers. People were throwing up all over the ship, but what was worse is that the elderly were getting dehydrated and had to be put on Ivs. The cabin that my wife and I stayed in was filthy. I had to ask for a sheet to cover the brown stained sofa. I wrote a complete report of this to our travel agent. NCL has not called her back. In Dover we saw an older woman try to not board the ship as she was worried about the health issue. NCL right there told her that they would not refund her the cost of the air fair to return to the US. Chuck I am also going to copy you on the letter I sent to the travel agent. I donít know how NCL got away with bringing this sick ship in to the US.

This is the letter to the Travel agent.

When we first got on the Dream our Cabin was down right filthy from day one. The sofa looked like some one had had an accident, brown stains everywhere. I had to get the room steward to change it. For two days I had it covered with a sheet. The refrigerator did not work; I had to get that fixed. When we first arrived at Dover England on a bus from London England, we were informed that there had been some gastrointestinal sickness on board on the prior cruise. I would say that about half of the passengers on our trip and crew came down with the Norwalk Virus. My wife and the rest of deck 10 got very sick with this virus. NCL knew about this particular virus and had some medicine to relive the symptoms.

The ship kept running out of different kind of food. For example my wife asked for some mushrooms about the fifth day out, they said they had run out of mushrooms, now how is that possible? A few days later no more English muffins.

One fine evening we went up to the Latitudes lounge to join our friends for a pre dinner cocktail. The lounge had been divided in half, we were told to sit on the port side of the lounge as there was going to be a private party on the other side. That was fine with us. We ordered our drinks and were having a fun time discussing the dayís events when we were informed that we would have to move to the other side of the lounge, as this was a better place to have the private party. OK, to be a good sport we moved to the starboard side of the lounge. We resumed our conversation. Ten minutes later we were again told by a very rude social director type that we would have to move to the port side again because the band was already set up on this side and would not move. I told this person that I had not paid for steerage passage and I was not some sort of cattle. He told me that it was the captainís private party and we would have to move, now. He collected our drinks and moved them to the other side. About ten minutes later the curtain that had been separating the two parts of the lounge were pulled back and we were informed that the party had been canceled!!!

When we arrived back in Boston we were put on the wrong buss to the airport. The buss did not get us even close to the terminal that we were to leave from. We had to take a taxi to get to the proper terminal.

This cruise from the very start even in the planning stages was very difficult. We have been on NCL for three cruises. We have had a hard time getting our latitudes numbers and membership straightened out. NCL did not want to give us the two nights in London UK as they had promised us when we signed up for the cruise. If it had not been for the tenacious efforts of out travel agent Tiffany Sutton at Vacations to Go we would have dropped the whole cruise idea.

You would think that once a cruise line has had you on three cruises they would take the time to treat you with some respect. I will probably never take another NCL cruise. Not that I think for one minute that NCL cares if I am on board or not. But I also will not ever recommend NCL to any one.

Chuck I hope that this answers some of your concerns. In short I will never take NCL again nor would I recommend it to anyone, ever. Michael T. Mackintosh.

NChuck Palm. My wife and I were on that cruise, and in fact it is all-true. I have attached a copy of the letter that was handed to us in Dover as we were getting on the ship. There is much more to this story. People were really getting sick my wife was so sick, our friends Peter and Marion were sick and their cabin was on the 6th deck across form the Medical center. There was always a long line of both crew and passengers. People were throwing up all over the ship, but what was worse is that the elderly were getting dehydrated and had to be put on Ivs. The cabin that my wife and I stayed in was filthy. I had to ask for a sheet to cover the brown stained sofa. I wrote a complete report of this to our travel agent. NCL has not called her back. In Dover we saw an older woman try to not board the ship as she was worried about the health issue. NCL right there told her that they would not refund her the cost of the air fair to return to the US. Chuck I am also going to copy you on the letter I sent to the travel agent. I donít know how NCL got away with bringing this sick ship in to the US.

This is the letter to the Travel agent.

When we first got on the Dream our Cabin was down right filthy from day one. The sofa looked like some one had had an accident, brown stains everywhere. I had to get the room steward to change it. For two days I had it covered with a sheet. The refrigerator did not work; I had to get that fixed. When we first arrived at Dover England on a bus from London England, we were informed that there had been some gastrointestinal sickness on board on the prior cruise. I would say that about half of the passengers on our trip and crew came down with the Norwalk Virus. My wife and the rest of deck 10 got very sick with this virus. NCL knew about this particular virus and had some medicine to relive the symptoms.

The ship kept running out of different kind of food. For example my wife asked for some mushrooms about the fifth day out, they said they had run out of mushrooms, now how is that possible? A few days later no more English muffins.

One fine evening we went up to the Latitudes lounge to join our friends for a pre dinner cocktail. The lounge had been divided in half, we were told to sit on the port side of the lounge as there was going to be a private party on the other side. That was fine with us. We ordered our drinks and were having a fun time discussing the dayís events when we were informed that we would have to move to the other side of the lounge, as this was a better place to have the private party. OK, to be a good sport we moved to the starboard side of the lounge. We resumed our conversation. Ten minutes later we were again told by a very rude social director type that we would have to move to the port side again because the band was already set up on this side and would not move. I told this person that I had not paid for steerage passage and I was not some sort of cattle. He told me that it was the captainís private party and we would have to move, now. He collected our drinks and moved them to the other side. About ten minutes later the curtain that had been separating the two parts of the lounge were pulled back and we were informed that the party had been canceled!!!

When we arrived back in Boston we were put on the wrong buss to the airport. The buss did not get us even close to the terminal that we were to leave from. We had to take a taxi to get to the proper terminal.

This cruise from the very start even in the planning stages was very difficult. We have been on NCL for three cruises. We have had a hard time getting our latitudes numbers and membership straightened out. NCL did not want to give us the two nights in London UK as they had promised us when we signed up for the cruise. If it had not been for the tenacious efforts of out travel agent Tiffany Sutton at Vacations to Go we would have dropped the whole cruise idea.

You would think that once a cruise line has had you on three cruises they would take the time to treat you with some respect. I will probably never take another NCL cruise. Not that I think for one minute that NCL cares if I am on board or not. But I also will not ever recommend NCL to any one.

Chuck I hope that this answers some of your concerns. In short I will never take NCL again nor would I recommend it to anyone, ever. Michael T. Mackintosh.
ita: how wrong you are, here is the letter and attachment that I sent to Chuck.